All that being said...I'm not complaining about the retirements, the players that go FA or what they ask in salary. I just want an easier way to manage organizations and get the right players at the right levels. The more you care about making your minor league teams competitive the harder it is and that's kind of counter to the goal of the game.

The people that are going to purposely ruin their organisation are likely going to find a way to do it no matter what rules are in place.

The people that don't care are going to leave roster spots open and more likely that will occur at the higher ML levels.

The people that just care about their prospects are going to do what Mike suggests and just toss players up with little regard for creating strong teams.

BTW, what would happen if I left my AAA roster with 9 players/pitchers total? I assume the games would sim without a DH and with pitchers playing positions? The lone pitchers would then quickly go to 0(0)?

What happens if you only have 8? My guess is the game auto promotes like it'll do in the case of injuries during the season if you have auto management turned on? If it does and there's 8 at AAA and 20 at AA does it move someone from AA and then move someone from lower down to fill the spot or does it just take a player from a roster that has over 20 to fill the spot.

Perhaps the best thing to do if you don't care and don't want to deal with other than your BL prospects is let the game auto manage it and then sign a bunch of Tryout guys when they become available.
If that's what occurs then perhaps that's the solution and it won't require any changes. Won't that make things fun.

Much like I suspected, you've created your own mess. Now, in the usual self-serving "suggetion" forum, you want an easier way to clean it up. Sorry, not interested. And it's disturbing that it took 4+ pages to find out the reason for the suggestion.

Posted by kschoenberg on 9/14/2012 4:03:00 PM (view original):All that being said...I'm not complaining about the retirements, the players that go FA or what they ask in salary. I just want an easier way to manage organizations and get the right players at the right levels. The more you care about making your minor league teams competitive the harder it is and that's kind of counter to the goal of the game.

The people that are going to purposely ruin their organisation are likely going to find a way to do it no matter what rules are in place.

The people that don't care are going to leave roster spots open and more likely that will occur at the higher ML levels.

The people that just care about their prospects are going to do what Mike suggests and just toss players up with little regard for creating strong teams.

BTW, what would happen if I left my AAA roster with 9 players/pitchers total? I assume the games would sim without a DH and with pitchers playing positions? The lone pitchers would then quickly go to 0(0)?

What happens if you only have 8? My guess is the game auto promotes like it'll do in the case of injuries during the season if you have auto management turned on? If it does and there's 8 at AAA and 20 at AA does it move someone from AA and then move someone from lower down to fill the spot or does it just take a player from a roster that has over 20 to fill the spot.

Perhaps the best thing to do if you don't care and don't want to deal with other than your BL prospects is let the game auto manage it and then sign a bunch of Tryout guys when they become available.
If that's what occurs then perhaps that's the solution and it won't require any changes. Won't that make things fun.

We've said this a few times - unless something's changed, if you don't have enough players to field a team at a level, those games don't sim. That's what was going on all the time when there weren't minimums initially. Some of it was accidental and some of it was people purposefully cutting down on minor league players to save cash.

I completely agree that the interface could and should be improved - but waiving the roster limits by itself isn't a good alternative.

Posted by AlCheez on 9/14/2012 3:47:00 PM (view original):You had 18 players that were in the minors last year asking for ML contracts? I find that hard to believe. I typically see a couple of thse each year.

Al,

Some of those guys were callups at the end of the season that were sent back down...I had a huge lead and wanted to rest some guys lower IPs so they did have a few BL days to their credit, but no decent team would have them on their BL roster and most of them had also been passed over in the Rule V more than once.

It's worse on very good/veteran teams for a couple of reasons...

I'll use my team as an example.

The team has gone to the WS the past three seasons so good AAA players and even some that would be mediocre BLers have nowhere to go with my team. I'm talking about the guys that aren't trade bait.
On the other side better/veteran teams generally aren't bringing in quality young players from the draft or IFA...

instead we have to fill my rosters with minor league free agents who are much more likely to become free agents again or retire

I could just promote the really bad players I pick up in the draft. While that would mean less retirements and probably easier to sign MLFAs it would also mean my teams at those levels would not be nearly as good as I could make them.

Once again...this isn't a complaint about FA or retirements...I'm just illustrating how teams that rely on veterans and have high player salaries, draft lower, sign A level FAs and don't have the budget for IFAs are going to end up with older rosters at the AAA and AA level and more retirements and FAs leaving.

Posted by MikeT23 on 9/14/2012 4:19:00 PM (view original):Also, players on the 40 aren't retiring until their 40s.

It's hard for me to track that but I have one guy that was on the 40 man at one time. There's no line item for him ever being removed. He played in my minors and this season retired at age 32.

Without a doubt though the bulk of players leaving are going as 6-Year FAs. Some are going to be on other teams BL roster, but for a good team they're not BL players and re-signing a for-sure minor leaguer to $1M+ contracts ain't exactly a winning strategy.

Do you disagree that the bulk of players that leave a minor league system are going to do so at AA and AAA?

I think I better add that HBD would be in deep trouble if everyone micromanaged their minors as you claim(and I say "claim" because I'm not sure you do or you wouldn't have 9 in AAA) you do. We'd all cut back to 1-2 teams because time just wouldn't permit us to have more. Worlds would die quickly and, finally, FOX would pull the plug because there's no money in the game.

Then why does HBD bother using all the resources necessary to sim those minor league games? If you're not supposed to manage them why even have it as an option. No, I don't turn off auto manage on all my minor league teams. Generally, I turn it off for AAA completely and depending on the season parts of AA. However, I do try to make every level of my organization competitive with the most emphasis on the BL team and then sliding down.

I guess you're suggesting that's wrong to do and hurts the game. Talk about a strange way of looking at things. Perhaps WIS is purposely making it hard or painful to manage the minor league teams as you suggest in order to have people sign up for multiple teams. Of course as I said earlier they could accomplish that by pretty much doing away with all of the minors and just implementing some kind of player progression for prospects based on budget.

All that said, none of it really has to do with what you're requesting. But it does indicate that you're being a bit disingenious in making your case. You created a situation that shouldn't happen. Now you want an easier way to fix it.

Posted by MikeT23 on 9/14/2012 4:39:00 PM (view original):You have 5 players in the minors on your 40. Looks like you might have 26 in the bigs right now. That means, in all likelihood, you have 33-35 on your 40 when the season ended.

I believe I had about 35 because I released some older players that I had picked up at BL salaries and had at AAA just in case of injury. Once again...I'm not complaining that anyone left or that I have only 9 at AAA. I just want to be able to move players around before the season without a little less hassle.

If I had 5 slots to fill at AAA I'd still have to go through the same process of cascading moves before it could be finalized.

Nope, that's not what I'm suggesting at all. I'm simply saying if everyone managed their minors like you claimed(which you just disproved) you do, there would be a lot less owners. Everyone is free to play the game as they choose within the parameters of the guidelines.

That said, if you're going to micro-manage your minors, do better. You should NEVER have 9 players in AAA at rollover. NEVER.